Zombie Loz: Homecoming
by Starherd
Summary: Kadaj, Yazoo, & an unexpectedly zombified Loz continue Business As Usual... in a 50s monster movie. Why does the lovely Marisu need their help? Why do the dead of Mako Wells return? Can Loz recover, or will he have to eat brains forever? Read & find out!
1. Chapter 1: Lovers End

**Author's Note: **Disclaimer at end of chapter.

Let me explain a bit... Zombie Loz came into existence when I received a review to a fic I wrote in which Loz died. The review said, among other things, "I hope he comes back!" For some reason, this gave me the mental image of a zombified Loz, searching the pantry for pickled brains in jars (Hojo undoubtedly keeps those around, being the resident mad scientist). I've been giggling about Zombie Loz ever since. Thank you, kind reviewer, for I am eternally in your debt for this. Zombie Loz thanks you too, and thinks that your brain may be tasty.

This review also inspired more than just me - check out user ID ZombieLoz on livejournal for more stories by other people! This multi-chaptered story works as a self-contained thing, though, so that's why I'm posting it here. (Also, though it's taking me a long time to finish it, it's periodically in season. Happy Halloween everyone!)

The titles of the chapters of this story are all titles of songs from my Zombie Music Mixes from the past few Halloweens. PM me if you're interested in those at all. This chapter's title song, "Lovers End", is by the Birthday Massacre.

* * *

**Part One (Lovers End)**

* * *

"Loz?"

The monster fell in a hail of bullets, fangs still dripping blood from the prey it had dropped. Yazoo got to his feet, eyes wide, stumbling toward the still form on the ground - his brother.

There was so much blood. The fangs had gone right through Loz; blood pumped at an alarming rate from the large and jagged holes, staining the leaf-covered ground around him. Yazoo fell to his knees, dropping his gunblade with a stunned whimper; they'd neither a Heal Materia nor Potions, and were too far out for him to be able to get Loz anywhere for help. The attack had been completely unexpected. There weren't _supposed_ to be monsters here that size.

"Loz, no..." Yazoo's hands fluttered helplessly over his brother, blood pouring from between his fingers when he tried to press the wounds shut. Loz jerked under his touch, more blood streaming from his mouth and nose.

Words tumbled from Yazoo's mouth, and even he wasn't sure what all of them were. It felt as though perhaps if he could say everything fast enough, Loz would have to stay alive just to listen.

Only there were too many words for what Yazoo wanted to say, and for the first time in his life, he was at a loss - but unable to stop speaking. He wanted it to be true, that Loz would - could - stay for his sake.

But Loz was moving his mouth, more blood spilling out, and the blood that pumped from the gaping wounds was slowing. Yazoo kept talking, begging, choking out the words as Loz's hand shifted just enough to brush his and Loz closed his eyes and no, no, no, this wasn't supposed to happen, not like this...

Yazoo begged Loz to stay until the blood had long since ceased to flow.

It had been so fast. The creature had ambushed them, and they'd simply moved to fight it off... and in mere minutes, Loz had been snapped up and flung aside and bled and died.

Minutes.

For a long time, Yazoo stayed where he was, hands covering his face. When he finally shifted, he saw the corpse again, turned pale and cold.

He stumbled and fell in his haste to move away, breathing fast and making small panicked noises.

Eventually he calmed enough to regain his feet and paced the clearing, speaking to Loz again. Apologies became anger and accusations of weakness, but he stopped himself when he realized that he was beginning to raise his voice.

Finally despairing, and catching movement in the surrounding woods, he spent another few hours gathering rocks and carefully buried Loz beneath them. Yazoo covered his brother's head last, after laying his forehead against the corpse's and cursing Loz's ineptitude and the attacking monster's luck and the entire damned Planet.

And when he finally stumbled back into the building they'd been living in, he'd found Kadaj curled in on himself, rocking in a corner, already aware...

"'Zoo?"

Yazoo's eyes snapped open, raising his arm - gunblade in hand - to swat away the hand clumsily pawing at his shoulder. He knew the culprit, but it took him a still moment with Velvet Nightmare trained at Loz's face before he lowered the gunblade.

"Sorry," Loz mumbled, shuffling back a bit on his hands and knees, fractured gaze downcast. "You dreamed. Said my name."

Loz had died. The only problem was that he'd somehow managed to not _stay_ dead. Yazoo wasn't sure what had brought Loz back - Mother's gift or the effects of experiments past - but he'd awakened and found them on his own.

If it was Mother's gift, it was a particularly cruel facet.

"It's all right, Loz," Yazoo murmured, sheathing the gunblade. He never _used_ to sleep with it in hand, and it was clear that Loz remembered that, from the way he sadly watched.

But Loz knew why, too. There were times now when he couldn't control himself, which was why he stayed locked away at night...

Waitaminute. Yazoo blinked, then looked at the chained-shut basement door across the room.

The heavy chain was broken, the links deformed. It would have taken significant strength to have done so, not to mention to have done so quietly enough to avoid waking Yazoo and Kadaj.

"Got hungry," Loz mumbled, and Yazoo finally noticed the blood smeared on his face. Loz wiped at his mouth, turning away almost self-consciously, the dim light and shadow catching his face and causing one eye to shine red with half-reflected light. The other eye still gleamed green with the memory of Mako treatments; the red was new. To Yazoo, it was disconcerting.

With brief a stabbing sensation in his stomach, Yazoo glanced toward the corner where Kadaj slept, but his younger brother was still resting as peacefully as he ever did. He was huddled with his back to the room, his side moving visibly with the deep breath of sleep.

Yazoo wondered how long Loz had been free, and how long he'd been away finding something to eat, and how long he'd been back and watching his brothers sleep. It wasn't supposed to work like that - not knowing where Loz was when he was hungry was a bad idea. He let himself be locked away because he knew...

He'd known he was getting hungry enough to hurt them and had fled rather than risk it. Letting them lock him up was nothing but a gesture to keep his brothers from worrying; he could leave when he wanted and didn't have to be desperate to do it.

Loz was shuffling uneasily back toward the basement door. "Don' tell 'Daj," he almost whined, glancing toward their brother.

Yazoo's expression softened a little, and for a moment, he wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep in Loz's arms, and he didn't _care_ if he woke up with Loz gnawing at his skull. Only he couldn't. Loz wouldn't be able to deal when he snapped out of it, and Kadaj would be... alone.

Yazoo's voice was oddly strained, for him, as he answered. "I won't."

* * *

**Disclaimer: **The Final Fantasy VII compilation (in particular, Advent Children), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	2. Chapter 2: Dangerous and Moving

**Author's Note: **Disclaimer at the end of the chapter.

This chapter's title song is "Dangerous and Moving" by t.A.T.u.

There's a cameo in this chapter by Guitar Wolf, the J-Rock band that spawned the zombie splatter movie Wild Zero, which I highly recommend. The band members are Guitar Wolf, the lead, and Bass Wolf and Drum Wolf, the backup. Once I got them associated with Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz, respectively, there was nothing I could do to prevent them from showing up in the story.

* * *

**Part Two (Dangerous and Moving)**

* * *

It wasn't just the situation with Loz that made Yazoo think that nothing was the same any more.

The town they'd come upon was obviously a planned community, with a lot of straight grid-set streets and greenery so well-trimmed that the care was obvious from the mountainside they stood upon. There was a solidness to the place, a palpable _age_, that was completely unexpected.

"Since when did North Corel look like this?" Yazoo muttered.

Kadaj snorted. "It doesn't matter what it looks like," he shrugged. "All that matters is that there's a retired Shinra scientist that worked with Mother here. We have to find out what he knows." He blinked, staring down at the decidedly ordered and well-established town. "Besides, Shinra rebuilt Nibelheim. Maybe this is the same kind of deception."

"Mebbe z'not Corel," Loz suggested, catching up and slipping down several feet of slope until Yazoo put out is arm to catch him. Loz simply couldn't react fast enough anymore to keep himself from damage, it seemed. ...Though really, Yazoo reflected, they didn't have to worry about Loz being damaged so much as doing damage...

"There _is_ supposed to be another day's walk before we get there," Yazoo said with a nod to Loz, though he refrained from saying anything about their slow pace being largely due to Loz himself. If Kadaj managed to keep his mouth shut about how long it took them to get anywhere, it wasn't Yazoo's place to mention it.

Kadaj shrugged again. "Doesn't really matter, does it." He hopped from the rock he'd perched on and started downhill again. "Come on, I see a road..."

Yazoo trudged along behind, glancing back occasionally to be sure that Loz followed, not quite waiting for him to catch up - which Loz wouldn't mind. Yazoo staying close to and protecting Kadaj, since Loz wasn't quite as effective any more, was more important.

Loz did catch up again as they made their way out onto the road, which was well-kept and paved in solid young black with yellow lines down the middle. Unusual for this part of the world.

"Miss th'cycles," Loz mumbled, his gait a little unsteady.

Next to him, Yazoo glanced over. They'd left the motorcycles back on the other continent when they'd ferried here - not just to avoid the effort of paying (or forcing) their way across and caring for them on a less-habited continent, but also because Loz's dulled reactions made him a downright liability on his. And having Loz ride behind one of them, so close to their heads should he grow hungry... that was just a little more unnerving than Yazoo or Kadaj could stand.

Yazoo voiced none of this, only smiled faintly as he responded. "Yeah, they'd practically fly on a road like this."

Kadaj said nothing.

"Hungry."

Yazoo's head jerked aside to face Loz, but Loz was only watching the ground, perhaps trying to be sure he didn't stumble as he walked.

Kadaj made a snorting sound. "We'll be there soon."

They walked silently through the fiery autumn forest that lined both sides of the road for a while longer. The wind blew, swaying the tops of the trees with a soft roar, carrying little but the scents of musty leaves and earth and decaying plant matter.

Loz grunted, stopping in his tracks and looking over his shoulder. Yazoo walked ahead a few paces before stopping as well, looking back. "What is it?"

But a moment later, the sound was audible to all three of them - an engine.

"Vehicle," Yazoo murmured, the three of them moving closer together. "Car. Modified engine..."

Kadaj abruptly turned to continue walking again, though he moved to one side of the road. "Keep moving."

Yazoo and Loz complied without question. When the car approached, the three of them were walking single-file along the side of the road.

The car was impractically low-slung and dusty black, with chrome ducts and chimneys rising through the hood like a miniature cityscape. It slowed to a crawl next to them, pacing them, the occupants studying them without pretense.

"You the competition?"

Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz simultaneously stopped and turned to look at the occupants of the car as it halted. Two of the three occupants seemed to be nearly identical, with partly slicked-back black hair that rose up a bit in the front, like Loz's but not as short. Those two wore leather jackets, while the third lounging in the back seat had shaggy hair and a red jacket. All three wore similar sunglasses and stony expressions. Their weapons were smaller - shoulder-holstered pistols and a few rifles and a katana, and what looked like a guitar, in the back seat.

Kadaj narrowed his eyes, but offered a small, sweet smile. "That depends," he said airily. "Do you think you can compete with us?"

Yazoo tilted his head, regarding the men with his usual unimpressed gaze. He disliked sunglasses - they were a mask that made it more difficult to read a human - but these guys were clearly little to be concerned with, more style than substance. Otherwise they'd not be wasting their time with a vehicle that stood little chance to traverse much of this continent. Kadaj obviously saw this as well - he was playing.

The near-identical pair in the front opened their doors and simultaneously stood. The one on the passenger side, facing them, reached back to open the door to the back seat, and the shaggy-haired man got out as well, his expression nearly as unimpressed as Yazoo's. The other two pulled combs from their back pockets and ran them through their hair in unison.

Beside him, Yazoo heard Loz lick his lips, and he smiled.

An entertaining hour later, Yazoo started the car up again as Kadaj flopped into the passenger side of the front.

The youngest propped his leg up with his foot out the open window, stretching his arms back over his head as best he could with the low ceiling. "That was fun," he commented, his attitude and smile radiating contentment. His sword rested beside him, cleaned and sheathed.

From the backseat, Loz grunted in agreement. There was a wet cracking sound as the eldest pulled the last of the severed heads apart a little more to get the last traces of brain inside.

The corner of Yazoo's mouth twitched upward as he shifted the car into gear and they began to head down the road again, without having to worry about anybody lagging behind. This wasn't such a bad day at all.

Yet.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **The Final Fantasy VII compilation (in particular, Advent Children), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	3. Chapter 3: Dead Heaven

**Author's Note: **Disclaimer at the end of the chapter.

This chapter's title song is "Dead Heaven" by Gary Numan.

Further chapters tomorrow!

* * *

**Part Three (Dead Heaven)**

* * *

The town was, without a doubt, the strangest that any of them had ever seen.

Yazoo slowed as he passed the welcome sign - a brightly painted thing proclaiming the place Shinra Model Town #13, "Mako Wells". Apparently the community was built to support an experimental type of Mako reactor a couple of miles up the valley.

"Not Corel," mumbled Loz, wiping blood from himself with what seemed to have been a band T-shirt left in the back seat.

"Doesn't matter," Kadaj reminded with a huff.

Beyond the sign, the trees and shrubs on the sides of the road became more well-manicured, and then... the houses began. They were nearly all individual two-story buildings, large enough to be spacious for a single family, with wide yards and porches and white picket fences and flower beds. They were covered in wood siding with dark roofs, and they were nearly all painted white, punctuated by the occasional beige or gray, with different darker colors of trim for each.

Running along the sides of the wide street, separating the yards from the asphalt, were wide concrete sidewalks. The entire area was so neat and orderly that it barely seemed to be inhabited. Yazoo had never seen the like before.

The overall impression was quite unnerving, despite sunny skies dotted with cotton candy clouds and warm coppery trees. Perhaps it was because the houses all seemed to be based on a set of four or five designs with minor variations, or because the streets were wide but there were few vehicles parked there (and even those were low, wide, impractical things similar to the one they'd appropriated), or because there wasn't a human in sight. The houses were still and silent.

Kadaj rolled up the passenger side window a bit, warily eyeing the empty-looking houses.

After a few blocks, the houses became a little smaller and closer together; the change was a little reassuring, though this new area was just as devoid of humans.

A few more blocks and the buildings became a little more familiar still - bulky cinderblock and brick structures with large garage doors or wide display windows and cheerfully painted signs. There were a few garlands of little colored triangular flags strung over the street at intervals. Obviously they were coming to the commercial area in the center of the town.

"Stop the car," Kadaj ordered, straightening in his seat.

"Why?" Asked Yazoo, pulling to one side and shutting down the vehicle nonetheless. Without the thrum of the modified engine, the area seemed eerily silent, except for the light chatter of birdsong and the staccato twanging of the guitar that Loz was toying with in the back seat (despite Kadaj having told him to stop several times already).

"Because I'm hungry now." Kadaj immediately hopped out of the car, fastening Souba's scabbard to the straps on his back again. "Even if there's no people there's bound to be food here somewhere." He spared Loz a vaguely irritated look. "Somewhere quiet." He began to walk down the sidewalk toward the next intersection.

Yazoo instinctively glanced back at Loz, but his older brother's ashen pallor only unsettled him further despite the familiar shrug. Loz was still Loz, but... different, and it was the difference that continually gnawed at Yazoo. Somehow Kadaj seemed to continue as though nothing were out of the ordinary - as though those days and nights he'd spent clinging to Yazoo and sobbing hadn't happened - but Yazoo found himself unable to adjust so easily. Loz was with them but not, and the three of them had never been so... separated.

Sighing, Yazoo moved to step out of the car as well. Loz immediately set about attempting to open one of the back doors, but Yazoo got out, closed his door, and calmly opened the back door before Loz could quite get a proper grip on the handle.

Yazoo took the guitar from Loz's hands - he seemed to have forgotten he was holding it - and chucked it back into the backseat before closing the door again. He left the keys in the ignition; if someone decided to take the car, it was no problem of theirs. It would save having to ride around with the blood smell any more, and would be useless beyond these rare paved roads anyway.

"Come on," he murmured to Loz, watching Kadaj stride away from them.

Kadaj reached the next intersection and stopped, studying something down the cross-street. Then he glanced back at his brothers, waiting for them to catch up.

What was clearly the town square was a block away from them, with building-sized lawns and a fountain topped by a statue in the center. More of the flag garlands stretched overhead. There were a few hundred humans there, all gathered around one corner where there seemed to be some sort of platform set up.

But more importantly, so far as Kadaj was concerned, on the opposite side of the square from the people was what was clearly an eatery of some sort. A pink and orange neon sign on the roof of the strangely rounded single-floor silver building proclaimed it to be "Mo's Diner". And it seemed to be completely unattended at the moment.

With eyes only for the restaurant, Kadaj barely turned his head in Yazoo's direction as he spoke. "Run interference if you have to. I'm going to get something to eat."

Yazoo, on the other hand, was staring at the large group of humans, instinctively trying to count them and assess the threat. "Kadaj, I don't think -"

But it was too late. Kadaj didn't even have time to step away from his brothers before one of the humans on the platform, facing in their direction, saw them and gave a shout.

"They're here!"

A low roar of murmurs surged through the crowd as they turned to look where the man on the platform was pointing. Yazoo tensed, hand halfway to reaching for his Velvet Nightmare, noting that Kadaj was reaching for his weapon as well.

And then the crowd erupted into a barrage of elated cheering, which was surprising enough that none of the brothers were quite able to react as the humans rushed them.

It was disorienting. Yazoo managed to draw his gunblade, but there were faces and hands everywhere, all around them, gaping at them and staring and pawing and pushing them forward. It was too much to process at once, and there were too many people around Yazoo for him to even raise his weapon. The crowd pressed too close, all smiling and speaking thanks for some reason - too many faces to mark, too many hands to swat away, too many targets to choose from. If he just started firing, he'd run out of ammunition quickly, and he might hit his brothers.

It felt like drowning. Yazoo looked wildly about for Kadaj and saw him just ahead, just as overwhelmed. But not close enough. Panic was rising in Yazoo's chest, and Loz being pushed along next to him, close enough that they collided every few steps, was not enough to quell the feeling. Kadaj needed him and he was failing -

And then Kadaj was pushed up onto the stage, finally managing to draw his sword as he stumbled onto the steps. He was angry, but had the presence of mind not to simply start slashing at the smiling faces - so long as he was on the platform, he was in the clear. His eyes briefly sought his brothers'; the motion of the crowd satisfied him that they were being herded the same way, and he relaxed slightly, straightening and lowering his sword a bit.

"S-sir?"

Kadaj turned as the somewhat harried-looking, suited man on the platform addressed him. The man was in his late middle age, salt-and-pepper haired, with a trim moustache. He glanced nervously between Kadaj and his brothers as they reached the stage. The crowd quieted down. "Which, ah, which one of you... leads?"

Kadaj straightened further. Now things were making a little sense. "That would be me."

The man blinked. "It... would?" He looked Kadaj up and down, taking in obvious youth and lesser stature.

"It would," Yazoo confirmed, eyes narrowing as he came to stand behind and to one side of Kadaj. Loz moved to Kadaj's other side, glowering, for all that he moved sluggishly. At least from here they'd a better chance of regrouping and successfully escaping, if not slaughtering the lot of them.

"Oh." The man blinked again. "Well then..." He coughed, adjusting the microphone in front of him. "Thank you for coming to rescue our fair town!" He proclaimed loudly, voice booming through loudspeakers mounted about the square - speaking directly to Kadaj. "Everybody, can we get another round of applause for these brave hunters!"

The humans erupted into cheering once more. Yazoo tilted his head, warily trying to gage the situation; Kadaj frowned in annoyance.

Beyond the suited man, there were a few other humans on the stage - two older and one around the same apparent age as Kadaj. The young one, a golden-haired girl, leaned forward a little to look past the man - her hair falling over one shoulder - and smiled fetchingly, blue eyes bright. She raised one hand and waggled her fingers at Kadaj. The motions would've appeared shy, were she not standing in front of an entire crowd already.

Kadaj huffed, blowing a stand of hair that had fallen in front of his face, gaze passing over the girl as though she wasn't there. As soon as the roar subsided enough that he could speak without shouting, he scowled at the man in charge. "You seem to be misinformed," he shrugged.

"You're the bounty hunter trio that answered our distress signal, aren't you?" The man asked, brow furrowing. He covered the microphone with one hand, speaking quickly in a low voice. "You look like it, and your message said you'd be here today... and we have the money ready for you... Is it not enough? Did you change your mind? We'll pay whatever you want! Just please, help us! Everyone that dies keeps coming back and we can't survive like this!"

Yazoo straightened and raised an eyebrow, glancing at Loz. Up until that last sentence, he'd expected Kadaj to simply gut the man next, but...

Kadaj's scowl softened and he looked to the floor of the platform for a moment. When he raised his eyes, he was nothing but stern composure again. "We'll need food and lodging."

"Of course!" The man exclaimed, hand flying from the microphone. "Of course, of course, you must be tired from your journey! We'll get you taken care of and tell you everything that's happened."

"Good," Kadaj acknowledged. "Food first. Then talk."

* * *

**Disclaimer: **The Final Fantasy VII compilation (in particular, Advent Children), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	4. Chapter 4: I Don't Like Candycorn

**Author's Note: **Disclaimer at the end of the chapter.

This chapter's title song is "I Don't Like Candycorn", which is sung by the Moose A. Moose mascot character on the preschool television channel Noggin around Halloween.

* * *

**Part Four (I Don't Like Candycorn)**

* * *

The crowd dispersed - even made way for them this time - as they followed the suited man (who introduced himself as Mayor Gourdworth) to the diner. Many of the humans remained in the vicinity, not even bothering to hide their curiosity. Only a few - the staff - entered the diner ahead of them, the mayor waving away the others that attempted entry.

Yazoo waited until Kadaj sheathed Souba before holstering his gunblade, and stayed close to Loz as they walked, their arms almost but not quite touching. Kadaj confidently strode ahead without a glance at his brothers, though he kept the pace slow enough that Loz would not fall behind. Loz remained scowling and silent - even now, he did not forget his role, Yazoo realized with a little relief.

When they entered, Loz took up a standard menacing position near the door, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. The mayor looked like he might protest for a moment, but thought better of it, and hovered just inside the door instead. Kadaj took a seat on one of the chrome and red vinyl barstools at the counter across from and a bit to the side of the door, and Yazoo sat next to him.

A mature woman with swoop-styled, dull brown hair almost immediately came out of the back, tying a ruffled, pale pink apron around her waist. She withdrew a pad of paper and a pencil from an apron pocket, barely looking at the three of them. "And what can we get for you..." Her eyes lifted to pass over Loz, then Kadaj, then Yazoo, and then back to Loz again with a slight smile. "...Boys."

Kadaj craned his neck to look over the woman's shoulder and through the rectangular window into the kitchen. It looked filthy and the smell of hot grease drifted through. "Fruit," he snorted, looking away so as to take in the rest of the room again. "Washed."

"Only fruit we've got is in the pie, hon," the woman said pleasantly.

"Whatever." The disgust radiating from Kadaj was nearly palpable.

"Apple, peach, cherry, strawberry, or strawberry-rhubarb?"

Kadaj scowled as though he might have just decided that this was far too much effort to go through for a bit of food, which meant that the next move would be to draw his sword. His hand was already moving when Yazoo spoke up. "Apple. I'll have the same"

Kadaj shot him a half-hearted glare, but he really _was_ hungry.

The woman scribbled on her tablet. "Anything for the big guy?" She said it a little more loudly, almost calling out. Loz either didn't hear her or (wisely, so far as Yazoo was concerned) ignored her.

Kadaj smiled. "Nah, he just ate."

The woman moved off, back into the kitchen area, calling out the order as she went. There seemed to be some confusion about it, but Yazoo ceased to pay attention, mind wandering.

So the town was having a problem with the dead rising... but none of them seemed to see anything odd about Loz, with his sluggish motions and shadowed eyes and cold skin so pale that it nearly seemed to have a green cast to it. He and Kadaj had mended Loz's clothing to cover the gaping holes left in his chest, unhealed but dry, but even so... surely these people noticed something... off?

Maybe humans were just that inobservant.

In any case, it was at once heartening and discouraging, to hear of something similar happening to the dead but to have such evidence that it was a different condition than what had happened to Loz. For a moment, Yazoo - and probably Kadaj too - had dared to hope that they could find a way to understand, maybe even reverse what had happened to Loz...

A plate with a fork and a generous helping of apple pie clanked as it landed on the counter in front of him. Yazoo's head snapped up to see a grizzled man, large in every way - tall and rotund - standing on the other side of the counter from the brothers with his hands on his hips. "Dunno why that'd be all yinz want," the man said, looking them up and down. "But'r pie's best around." He nodded at his own words as though that would vouch for their veracity.

Kadaj picked up the fork and poked at the unusually large slices of glazed apple slowly sliding from between the layers of pastry on his plate. "Tell me what's been happening," he commanded, without even looking over his shoulder at the mayor.

"Ah. Well. Yes." The mayor wrung his hands, nervously stepping a bit closer. "It started... a few months ago, see. Our lovely town here was designed to be self-sufficient, and we don't have a lot of contact with the rest of the world. Going on two years since our last official communication with Shinra, even."

Yazoo could see Kadaj starting to tune out the man's droning and did his best to listen intently. His little brother speared one of the apple slices and lifted the dripping piece to his mouth, cautiously tasting with the tip of his tongue first. He paused, then took a small bite, then shrugged to himself and began eating in earnest.

The mayor pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and patted at his brow. "We didn't think the lack of communication unusual until that gypsy woman came by back during the Spring Carnival. We don't know who she is - half-Wutainese or something, comes and tells fortunes every year..."

Idly prying the top crust from his piece of pie as he listened, Yazoo similarly inspected the contents. He separated out a piece of apple onto the plate, broke it into smaller pieces with the side of the fork, and took a bite.

The apple had a distinct underlying taste of Mako - not toxic, but odd...

"...And the gypsy told our darling Marisu that she was doomed to die at the hands of the undead by the second full moon of autumn, and that's only a few days away!"

"Your darling what?" Kadaj mumbled around a bite. So he _was_ listening, after all.

The man's voice went a little... warm. "Our dearest Marisu," he responded, and Yazoo leaned forward a little to look past Kadaj at the mayor. The man looked smitten by the mere thought. "The most beautiful little girl in town, and my godchild. Oh, you saw her, she was on stage..."

"Oh," Kadaj grunted with a distinct lack of enthusiasm, wrinkling his nose as though the pie tasted off. "Huh. Go back to talking about the undead."

"Yes!" The mayor continued as if he hadn't heard. "That lovely girl and our entire town are now the victim of a horrible gypsy curse! Anyone who dies returns from the dead to attack others! We've lost half the population already, and we can't seem to get any messages through to anyone for help. Your answering our distress beacon and text messages has been our only contact with the outside world!" He leaned forward with an air of desperation. "Is it like this everywhere? Is that why Shinra won't answer us any more? Are zombies overrunning the Planet?"

Kadaj very slowly and deliberately pulled his fork from his mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a silent minute before answering, features blissfully calm to the point of disinterest. "No, it's just you."

The mayor mopped his brow again. "Oh, that's such a relief!"

Yazoo glanced over his shoulder. There were humans pressed up against the windows gaping at them at almost every clear space. He narrowed his eyes and turned back to the counter -

- Only to come almost nose-to-nose with the grimy cook, who'd been standing behind the counter the entire time. "You're _real_ purdy, miss," he drawled.

Yazoo leaned back, expression still impassive, setting down his fork on his plate.

There was a shifting and a creaking next to him, and Yazoo turned slightly to see Loz settling onto the empty barstool to his left, eyes following the cook as he backed away like a dragon watching a chocobo. It was more reassuring than Yazoo liked to admit.

Without thinking, Yazoo lifted the fork again and offered Loz a bite of pie - only remembering as he held the bite ready that Loz didn't actually seem to eat _food_ any more. But Loz leaned forward with a slight smile and accepted the bite anyway, exactly as he would have before he'd... died. As though, at that moment, he didn't remember that he was dead.

Yazoo watched with that same sort of small glimmer of hope that flared every time they found a new lead on where Mother might be, and hated himself for it now just as much as he always did.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **The Final Fantasy VII compilation (in particular, Advent Children), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	5. Chapter 5: Living Dead Girl

**Author's Note: **Disclaimer at the end of the chapter.

This chapter's title song is "Living Dead Girl" by Rob Zombie.

* * *

**Part Five (Living Dead Girl)**

* * *

It seemed strange for a town intended to be self-sufficient to have an inn, even this small one, when it remained entirely vacant nearly all the time. But, Yazoo reflected, it was clean, it had hot running water, and they had relative privacy. At least they hadn't been put up in a room in one of those weird houses with humans in the next room to deal with.

"We'll find out what we can about what's going on here," Kadaj announced to the room in general from his position on the bed, expecting his brothers to listen. He was looking over a map again, but rather than the battered world map they'd been using in their search for Mother, he had his red marker poised above a map of Mako Wells that he'd gotten from the mayor. "Shouldn't take long. This is a pretty small area..."

Yazoo was sitting on the windowsill, watching for movement on the street outside. It was just now reaching sunset, but all the humans seemed to have already holed up indoors.

He glanced toward his younger brother, one hand idly running over his gunblade in his lap. "We already know that it's different from Loz's condition," he said softly, gaze sliding down to where his older brother sat with his back against the bed, slowly cleaning his own firearm. "Should we take the time at all?" Kadaj might be upset later, when they found nothing useful here and he decided that they were wasting time.

Kadaj looked up at Yazoo. "Different doesn't necessarily mean unrelated," he said in a tone of voice that demanded to know why he was being challenged. "Besides," he added, looking away again when Yazoo did not meet his eyes, "There's the unlisted reactor here to investigate. You know how Shin-Ra likes to run experiments in them. There might be information about Mother here too."

Satisfied with his own justification, Kadaj sat up straighter and began to carefully fold the map. While their world map had long since acquiesced to Kadaj's will concerning its storage, this new one seemed intent upon refusing to re-fold properly. Yazoo wondered how long it would take before Kadaj wadded it into a ball and threw it away.

It took roughly one-hundred and eight seconds.

Yazoo made a mental note to retrieve the crumpled map from the floor next to the television and quietly smooth and fold it after Kadaj had gone to sleep.

"'Zoo, trade," Loz suggested, offering his re-assembled Velvet Nightmare.

Yazoo handed over his gunblade to be cleaned and took Loz's, just as they'd done for as long as either of them could remember. He couldn't help but relax a little at the familiarity. If it wasn't for Loz moving so slowly, he could almost believe that nothing was wrong.

Kadaj did a few stretches alone on the bed, then sat up and swung his legs over the edge - one leg nearly dangling over Loz's shoulder - and huffed. "Turn on the television," he demanded, looking directly at Yazoo.

Yazoo glanced into the room again. The remote control was on the floor next to Loz's array of dismantled gunblade parts. "It's closer to you," he suggested neutrally. He realized, of course, that Kadaj was angling to start a disagreement. He just wasn't going to make it easy.

"I don't care," Kadaj said carefully, an intense gleam sparking in his eyes. "I ordered you to do it."

As entertaining as a good fight could be, this really wasn't that good a time to go destroying a hotel room. "Kadaj, I'm on watch. I'm not -"

The television switched on. Kadaj and Yazoo both looked down at the remote...

...As Loz lifted his hand from it and clumsily picked it up, handing it to Kadaj.

"Hmph." The youngest took the remote control, but shifted back on the bed, away from Loz. He sat cross-legged instead of hanging his legs over the edge.

There were channels of Shinra educational programs, Shinra-sponsored dramas and comedies from years past, and a bizarre show concerning some sort of dubbed Wutainese cooking competition, which Loz seemed to be interested in for the few minutes that Kadaj left it on. But strangest of all, there was no news. At all.

Yazoo noted, eyeing the screen, that the colors seemed to be muted on every channel as well. Even the television sets here were outdated.

Just as he looked back to the street, now cloaked in full night, a flicker of shadow beneath a streetlight caught Yazoo's eye. He tensed, staring, his gaze instinctively tracking through the darkness between streetlamps based on the speed and direction of the shadow he'd glimpsed.

There. Skirting the pool of light from the next streetlamp was a small figure in a trenchcoat, with a hat pulled low over its face. It seemed to be carrying a wrapped bundle under one arm.

"I believe that we will shortly have company ," Yazoo informed his brothers, watching the figure disappear below - presumably into the main entrance of the building.

"What sort?" Kadaj asked, feigning disinterest.

"Only one. Small. May be armed."

"May be," the youngest echoed, this time with a slight air of disappointment. He sighed.

There were a few quick clicking sounds from Loz's position on the floor. Yazoo looked down as Loz held up Yazoo's Velvet Nightmare. "Trade back."

Yazoo narrowed his eyes. That gunblade had been in small pieces a moment ago - how had Loz managed to reconstruct it so quickly, at his reduced speed?

There was a quiet knock at the door, followed by a light, feminine voice. "Um... hello?"

Yazoo swapped the gunblades back and stood; Loz pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, and took Yazoo's place at the window. At a nod from Kadaj, who remained in position on the bed, Yazoo crept forward, unlocked the door, and cautiously opened it a few inches.

The blonde girl from the stage - Marisu, Mayor Gourdworth had called her - was standing outside the door, huddled in a coat and hat that were obviously too large for her. She had a paper bag under one arm; Yazoo detected the scent of apples tinged with Mako.

The girl turned her large crystal blue eyes on his. "I have to talk to you," she pleaded. "This is all my fault. You have to listen."

Yazoo heard Kadaj hop off of the bed and approach. "Let her in."

Opening the door a little wider, Yazoo let the girl slip inside - then closed and locked the door again behind her. She turned at the sound of the lock and gave him a slightly nervous look as he holstered his gunblade, then straightened, seeming to steel herself.

"Um." She offered a weak smile to Yazoo, and to Loz, who blinked slowly at her before returning to staring out the window. Her smile broadened when she turned her gaze upon Kadaj. "Um, Maureen mentioned that you wanted fruit, so I brought you some apples," she announced, holding the paper bag toward him.

Neglecting to ask who Maureen was, Kadaj tilted his head, then took the bag and unrolled the crumpled top. There were three green apples inside, each the size of a cantaloupe.

Kadaj handed the bag to Yazoo, who took it to the desk off to the side, removed one of the apples, and began to cut pieces from it using a pocket knife that he kept hidden in his coat for just such a purpose.

Kadaj returned to sit on the bed, his position deceptively relaxed. None of them invited the girl to sit.

"Tell me how this is all your fault," the youngest brother asked, pretending to pay more attention to the television - still droning on in the background - than to the girl.

Without the bag to hold on to, and with no invitation to sit, the girl shifted nervously from foot to foot and wrung her hands. "Well. Um. I'm Marisu..."

Kadaj's voice held the flat tone of boredom heading for annoyance. "Not what I asked."

Yazoo wondered if it would be worth hiding the girl's body so that it wouldn't be found until after they'd left the town, once Kadaj was done with her. He surreptitiously lifted his gaze to inspect her. She had lustrous honey-gold hair that fell in soft waves to her shoulder blades, eyes as blue as the cord that wrapped Kadaj's sword's grip, and was generally well-proportioned in features and build - and completely unimpressive, so far as Yazoo was concerned. She was nothing but an adolescent human female.

Still, there was something that he felt he should realize about her that he couldn't quite see. Something tugging at the back of his mind...

"Er... right... well..." The girl swallowed and took a deep breath. "I know Mayor Gourdworth told you about the gypsy woman. Maureen works the diner and she told me. What happened was, I went to see the gypsy at Spring Carnival to have her tell my fortune, and she got jealous of how pretty I am and how great everything was going to go for me when she saw my future, so she changed it! She cursed me!"

Kadaj gave the girl a sidelong glance, clearly skeptical as to how anyone could be jealous of a human on such grounds, much less foresee the future and change it. Yazoo raised an eyebrow.

Apparently the girl seemed to have expected some other reaction, possibly some gesture of sympathy. She blinked, confused, but decided to forge on ahead. "And before long my boyfriend got sick and died, but then he, he just... came back! And he came after me at the prom and killed some people before Davey Carter smashed his head in the retractable bleachers in the gym!"

She seemed satisfied when Kadaj finally looked at her with a bit more interest, though Yazoo suspected that his younger brother was merely interested by the mention of head-crushing. "And then Billy didn't come back any more, but the people he killed did, and it's just gotten worse and worse..."

"So taking out their head stops these undead people?" Kadaj asked, even more interested now. "Where are they?" Obviously he was interested in testing this information as soon as possible.

Marisu gave a miserable shiver, leaning back against the wall for lack of a seat and hugging herself. "They'll be on their way. They only come out after dark, and they really do come after me, you see. I've been staying locked safe in my room while the police guard my house, but they lose someone else almost every week. But now that you're here to save us... I snuck out to see you..."

Yazoo rolled his eyes, continuing to cut the oversized apple into pieces. He wondered how effective a perimeter the police could have set up, if this girl could so easily sneak through it.

"...What's your name?"

Uh-oh. Yazoo looked up again. The girl had taken a few steps toward Kadaj and knelt, looking up at him with large, liquid eyes.

"Kadaj. This is Loz, and Yazoo." The youngest jerked his head toward his brothers, respectively. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "If these dead people are after you, and it's because of protecting you that more people here have died, why hasn't anyone just killed you to see if they stop?"

The girl looked like she might cry. "I - I don't know," she stammered weakly. "Maybe - maybe everyone just loves me -"

"You could try killing yourself," Kadaj suggested. "Would that save your people, or would _you_ come back, too?"

Marisu blinked. "Uh..."

Yazoo finished with the apple, pieces neatly arranged on a sheet of inn stationary, and dropped the core into the trash can next to the desk. "Don't tease, Kadaj," he said, offering Marisu one of his more charming smiles.

Kadaj turned to regard Yazoo with narrowed eyes. For his brother to do something so out of character as to reprimand him... could only indicate that Yazoo had picked up on something that he hadn't yet. Kadaj's eyes widened slightly, just before he schooled his features into a more relaxed state. His older brother seemed to think that they needed to indulge the girl; Kadaj could only wait to find out why, if Yazoo would not speak it in front of the human.

Fine, then. Deception could be a good game too. Kadaj turned back to Marisu, only to find her smiling at him. He softened his expression, giving her as warm a smile as he could muster in return, and a slight chuckle, but damned if he was going to actually _apologize_ when he hadn't been teasing at all.

She seemed to fall for it just fine, though. "What I came to ask was, will you be my - I mean - will you guys be bodyguards for me?" Marisu seemed to be blushing for some reason. "The second full moon of autumn is Saturday night! I'm sure that the curse will be broken if I can live past then!"

Kadaj glanced at Yazoo, then over his shoulder at Loz, then back at Yazoo. If nothing else, the girl seemed to believe that she was the reason for the plague affecting her town. She could well be key to the information they sought.

He turned back to Marisu, smile still in place. "Of course."

* * *

**Disclaimer: **The Final Fantasy VII compilation (in particular, Advent Children), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	6. Chapter 6: Walk Like a Zombie

**Author's Note: **Disclaimer at the end of the chapter.

This chapter's title is from the song "Walk Like a Zombie" by the Horror Pops.

(...And now I have to slow down posting, as the story's now caught up to me - I'm working on chapter 7 now.)

* * *

**Chapter Six (Walk Like a Zombie)**

* * *

Their first duty as Marisu's bodyguards, it seemed, was to escort her back to her house. She kept talking as Kadaj led the way out into the hall - something about there being some sort of school sports game the next night, and a dance the night after that, the night of the full moon.

Yazoo hung back, then moved toward Loz, who was still staring out the window. He hadn't been on watch at all - he was staring at the near-full moon in the sky, eyes wide and unblinking and... dead.

It wasn't the first time Yazoo had seen this happen to his older brother since his death. The moon seemed to be entrancing to him, somehow.

"Loz?" He swallowed, then reached out to touch Loz's shoulder, leaning closer out of instinct before he remembered that he probably shouldn't.

Loz blinked, the strange fog seeming to lift from his eyes. He looked miserably at Yazoo, then down, giving a low, quiet moan that could only mean that he was growing hungry.

"Already?" Brow furrowed, Yazoo patted at Loz's back. "It's all right. We're going out now; we'll find you something."

Loz grunted in acknowledgement, and they moved to follow their younger brother.

The air outside was cooler than Yazoo expected, the streets empty and silent. There weren't even any animals to be seen, which was odd, considering how humans seemed to enjoy their presence.

Marisu led the way down silent streets and into a residential area, then further, toward the larger houses. By the time they reached that point, they began to notice sounds and movement in the shadows down side-streets. The girl became increasingly nervous.

"We'll have to announce ourselves to the police," she explained, taking off the hat she'd been wearing. "They won't be expecting us, you see. They'll be expecting the zombies. We don't want them to shoot us."

"Whatever," Kadaj mumbled. The girl talked too much, so far as he was concerned. He looked over his shoulder; Yazoo was close behind him, and Loz stumbling slowly after, hanging back. His eyes narrowed and he looked at Yazoo, who nodded. Loz would have to feed again soon.

Down the street, beyond Loz, several other figures were clumsily following as well.

They were passing a tree-shrouded alley that gave access to the backs of houses when there was a clattering sound, far more close than was desirable. Someone - something - was slowly extricating itself from the trash cans it had just wandered into and fallen over, and three more were lurching toward them from further down the alley.

"Move," Kadaj ordered, shoving at Marisu. She seemed to be momentarily rooted to the spot, eyes wide, the color drained from her face.

She lifted a hand toward one of the creatures. "I know him..."

"No you don't," Yazoo snapped, burying all thoughts of Loz. These undead were behaving the way Loz did when he was most hungry, and they'd no one to make sure that they fed; they were liable to attack indiscriminately. "Keep moving."

"But that's Lieutenant Schaeffer!" The girl cried, waving her arm at the creature. "He's the one that let me sneak out to see you - Ow!"

Kadaj had grabbed her by the arm and was now pulling her roughly along. "Which house," he snapped.

"Th-there -"

He set about dragging her again, but two more of the undead stumbled out into their path at the last cross-street before the large white-sided house that Marisu had indicated.

Yazoo casually walked up to the late Lieutenant Schaeffer, tilted his head in thought, and then moved around behind the slow creature. It couldn't turn to face him again before Yazoo had taken its head in his hands and twisted it around until the spine snapped.

The creature gave a last vacant moan, its body going limp, before Yazoo let it fall to the ground. It certainly _seemed_ to be... more dead, now. Apparently the brain still controlled the rest of the body in these things.

...Though it wasn't reliant on breathing or having its heart beat for its locomotion. Why would severing the spinal cord -

As if on cue, Lieutenant Schaeffer gave another groan, teeth gnashing.

Taking a barely startled step back, Yazoo drew his gunblade and shot the thing in the head.

Destroying the brain definitely seemed to work better.

Kadaj seemed to have discovered the same thing. Despite Marisu's shrieking, he'd successfully decapitated their opposition and avoided doing the same to the girl. He looked over at his brother, but Yazoo waved him off.

"We'll be along," Yazoo called out easily as Loz caught up to him. Kadaj nodded and headed off in the direction Marisu had indicated without actually waiting for her to follow, sword still drawn, looking about for more undead to slaughter. The girl scurried after him, casting his brothers a frightened look and almost stumbling into Kadaj before facing forward again.

Loz tilted his head, nudging the corpse with a toe. These zombies really were clearly different from him. He was... stopped, almost as though in suspended animation, but for his mobility and hunger and mind. He didn't bleed even though he'd gaping holes in his torso, but Yazoo had seen his wounds gathered since his... death... vanish as soon as he fed. He didn't starve if he didn't feed - just became more and more dangerous, his consciousness bleeding away.

Yazoo was certain that his brother hated losing himself like that. At the very least, _he_ hated watching it happen...

These creatures were different, all wet and oozing and decaying. Lieutenant Schaeffer's clothing was half-shredded and there were entrails hanging from a gaping tear in his side, and the opposite side of his face and neck appeared to have been chewed on. One leg was gnawed down to the bone at the calf as well.

And he'd been alive a few hours ago, according to Marisu... Which meant that these dead arose more quickly than Loz had...

Something brushed clumsily at his hair from behind. Loz simply reached out and grabbed and yanked. There was a wet grating sound, and as Yazoo raised his head, Loz pulled back with a lower arm - twisted off at the elbow - that dripped thick, cold blood.

Yazoo unhurriedly stepped forward, over Lieutenant Schaeffer, and let Loz remove the head of the creature that had gotten close enough to touch him. Loz held up the head in both hands, watching the still-snapping jaws with a clearly disappointed expression, and pressed his hands together until the skull broke beneath the skin and the movement stopped.

His brother patted him on the shoulder. "Let's go see if any of the other living humans are still out here," Yazoo suggested, smiling slightly.

At the far end of the alley, when they heard the screams for help from a zombie-besieged woodshed, Yazoo's smile broadened to a grin.

Yazoo waited until Loz had finished eating before they went to look for Kadaj. Their younger brother was waiting for them on the front porch of one of the larger houses.

"Took you long enough," he called out, perched on the porch railing with Souba lying across his lap. There were five or six more corpses littering the front lawn, none of the undead having made it as far as the porch, and Kadaj had even had time to clean his sword since the last had approached. "You're a mess."

Swift and lithe, Kadaj had easily dispatched his adversaries without ever drawing nearer than the length of his double-bladed sword. Yazoo and Loz, on the other hand, hadn't made use of the luxury of distance, and were spattered and dripping. Most of the blood was fresh, not the congealed ichor of the undead.

Yazoo only rolled his eyes. Loz made a slight chuckling sound that said he'd happily get even more messy if opportunity presented.

Kadaj grinned and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Go on inside and get cleaned up. Guest room with a shower on the second floor. They said we're to stay until morning." He hopped to his feet on the edge of the porch, then jumped over the hedge to stand on the lawn with his brothers. "I get first watch. That girl's annoying. Why are we keeping her alive?" The grin slipped thoughtlessly into a pout (though not as severe as Loz's) as Kadaj fixed his gaze on Yazoo.

Yazoo's response seemed to be a little tired. "Information."

"Uh-huh." Kadaj sheathed his sword and folded his arms. "And why aren't we just torturing it out of her?"

At least Kadaj was _asking_ instead of jumping directly to taking action. That meant that he acknowledged that Yazoo might have some insight to the matter. "She seems to have everyone we've met here so far in her thrall," Yazoo pointed out. "We'll get nothing but trouble if we harm her now."

Kadaj looked away, as though scoping the area for further zombie movement, rather than conceding the point. "Fine, but I'm killing her before we leave. She won't stop _pawing_ at me." He made a face.

Yazoo, all too familiar with overly-attracted humans, twitched. "By all means." He brushed at some of the drying blood on his sleeve. "Second floor, you said? Come on, Loz." He pulled at his elder brother's arm; Loz had been staring at the moon again, and it took him a moment to blink and focus once more, but he nodded to Kadaj and followed Yazoo without a word.

The first-floor windows were all barricaded; only the front door was accessible, and a man with a shotgun opened it when Yazoo and Loz approached. "I'm Roland, Marisu's father," he announced, stepping aside for them to enter - though upon seeing their gory state, he didn't extend a hand in greeting. "I, uh... Thank you gentlemen for protecting my daughter."

Yazoo looked up the stairs, and down the hall to the well-lit kitchen, and finally met the man's eyes. "Upstairs?"

"What?" The man blinked in confusion, before his eyes widened. "Oh! Yeah, end of the hall."

Giving the man a curt nod, Yazoo immediately headed for the stairs. Loz followed, looking over his shoulder to favor Roland with a slightly frightening smile, the light catching the red reflection in one eye.

Roland shuddered and returned to guarding the front door. Bounty hunters were dangerous business.

The guest bedroom was wallpapered in a bright yellow floral print, with matching golden carpet and bed linens so laden with satin and lace that it seemed impossible that anyone might fit into the bed. At least there were enough pillows visible that it would be easy to extract one and sleep on the floor in relative comfort. He'd even predicted this, Yazoo realized, when he'd been thankful for the Inn. He couldn't quite bring himself to laugh about it.

The adjacent bathroom was equally atrocious. With the bedroom door shut - it didn't lock, Yazoo noted with irritation - he led Loz into the appallingly sunshine-colored washroom and set about cleaning him off.

He reflected, as he wiped the blood from Loz's coat with a damp towel, that this should be a far more entertaining activity. They'd done this sort of thing before - irreparably stained some poor Inn's towels with the remains of whatever they'd killed... and then proceeded to make a mess of the washroom, and gone to sleep for a few hours, together. Happy.

Yazoo tried to stop thinking.

When their clothes were mostly wiped down, they shucked their coats to work at skin instead. Inside, in a well-lit area, the blood around Loz's mouth would be obvious...

Though of course without his repaired coat, there could be no mistaking Loz for _alive_, with that damage.

Yazoo managed to hold off until he got to Loz's back, rubbing away dried blood that had gotten under his collar and smeared down his shoulder, before he had to close his eyes for a moment. He ducked his head, taking a deep, slow breath.

"'Zoo," Loz murmured, looking over his shoulder.

It took Yazoo two tries before he could speak. "Can't... do this," he muttered. "Can't stand remembering - I mean - I _miss_ you and you're right _here_..."

He let his hands fall away, unconsciously wringing the stained yellow towel he held, as Loz turned around. His older brother stood close, lay a heavy hand on his shoulder, then raised both hands to hold either side of Yazoo's head the same way he'd held the severed but still gnashing head earlier.

Yazoo found himself hoping that Loz would simply crush his skull as well and put an end to this.

Instead, Loz leaned forward a little and touched his cold forehead to his brother's, eyes closed. He made a strangled whimpering sound - he'd be crying if he still had tears.

Yazoo lay his hands on Loz's chest, ignoring the unevenness on the right side. The dead wound wasn't so noticeable if he kept his eyes closed. "Don't cry, Loz," he said with a half-laugh that might've been hysterical if it weren't so bitter.

Loz pulled him a little closer and nuzzled at his hair - without biting - and then stepped back, letting go entirely. The elder kept his strange eyes averted as he stepped around Yazoo. "Wash," he suggested quietly, moving out into the bedroom. "I'll be here."

Yazoo went through all the motions of calmly undressing and starting the shower before sliding to the floor of the shower stall and hiding his face in his hands.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **The Final Fantasy VII compilation (in particular, Advent Children), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


	7. Chapter 7: Unsolved Mysteries

**Author's Note: **Disclaimer at the end of the chapter.

This chapter's title song is the theme song of the N.B.C. show Unsolved Mysteries, which was a wonderfully creepy theme.

* * *

**Chapter Seven (Unsolved Mysteries)**

* * *

The floor was hardwood, but a few blankets and pillows later, still far more inviting than the bed. Yazoo spent the better part of an hour awake and lying on his side with his back to Loz at the window. Some time after that, he awoke - without having realized that he'd been falling asleep - to find Kadaj sprawled next to him, cleaned and sleeping deeply.

It seemed that Loz had gone out to be on watch, as it were. There was an occasional guttural cry or crunching sound or thump against the outer walls that signaled that the undead were being well-thrashed before reaching any entrance to the house.

Yazoo spent what felt like a long time watching Kadaj. It was unusual to see him so relaxed and undisturbed, even in sleep. He seemed to be almost... satisfied, for the moment. Content. He wasn't curled up to shut out the world, nor was he murmuring or thrashing in his sleep as so often happened. He was simply... at rest.

Perhaps Mother was allowing them to waste time in this place purely so that they could be better rested for when they _did_ reach Corel. She'd given them such respite before, now and then, usually if they had wounds to recover from. They were no good to her if they couldn't function, after all.

He wondered if Mother understood that Loz was dead and not going to get better, even if he _was_ still... going. He wondered what she'd said to Kadaj about Loz, if anything. Yazoo and Loz had never been able to hear Mother clearly the way that Kadaj could, and Yazoo had always felt her more strongly than Loz - sensed her pulling and calling and needing. What if the reverse was also true, and she'd never been able to sense Loz very well at all? What if she simply didn't know or didn't miss him?

He put an end to that wandering train of thought. Even now, Loz would be crushed if he got the idea that Mother didn't care about him. It didn't bear considering because nothing useful could come from it - therefore, Yazoo put it from his mind.

He fell asleep again listening to Kadaj breathe.

It wasn't until he awoke to the room aglow in sunny yellows that he realized that Loz hadn't come to wake him for the third watch shift of the night. Kadaj wasn't next to him any more, either.

Yazoo sat bolt upright, head spinning for a moment. What was wrong with him! He'd _never_ slept like that before -

The sound of Kadaj's laughter, clear and lacking the usual tinge of malice - though perhaps a little forced? - drifted up from downstairs. Yazoo realized that the bedroom door was slightly ajar.

The scene in the kitchen, when Yazoo reached it, was enough to disturb him a little before anyone said a word. Kadaj seemed to be having a perfectly fine - large, even - breakfast, with Marisu sitting next to him at the table, and her father across from them and her mother hovering. Upon seeing Yazoo, the mother swiftly pulled out a chair and motioned for him to sit. "Come on in, sleepyhead, there's plenty for all!"

Yazoo would've bristled, but he was a little too shocked by Kadaj sitting there, smiling. He didn't smile back. "Loz?" He asked, glancing about.

"Took his share outside," Kadaj said easily, as though there were nothing unusual about this at all. The casual attitude seemed to be working on the humans, at least. "He's been making a pile of corpses in the yard. They shouldn't come back if we burn 'em, right?" He motioned for Yazoo to sit.

"Incineration," Yazoo mused, nodding once. If the bodies were ash, they couldn't very well move about at all, could they.

He sat down slowly, still wary - it was entirely unlike Kadaj to take to social deception _this_ well. He had a plate of pancakes, chocobo egg, and sausage links in front of him, and he was eating _all_ of it. Even the syrup on the pancakes. To Yazoo, it was a little unnerving.

The sausage, as it turned out, wasn't actual meat, but was composed of various vegetables and flavorings, even though the town had its own meat farm and slaughter house. Marisu had insisted that her family be vegetarian ever since witnessing her boyfriend become a brain-eating zombie... though apparently the scrambled egg mixed with ketchup, served out of half of the chocobo eggshell, weren't a problem for her. Yazoo only stared at the egg when Marisu's mother filled his plate without asking. The mixture looked a little too much like brains to him.

Marisu's father, who worked in the experimental Mako reactor, had spent a month formulating the concoction, and he seemed only too happy to use company time to satisfy his daughter's cravings. He worked in the reactor's large hydroponics lab, where the town's fruits and vegetables all came from, grown in a watered-down Mako solution.

At least that explained why everything here tasted of Mako, not to mention the products' size.

Nothing, however, explained why Kadaj was smiling at Marisu and laughing with her and watching her as often as not. Yazoo couldn't quite stop staring. It wasn't that the girl wasn't pleasing to the eye; it was that Kadaj suddenly seemed to think so too.

To make matters worse, Marisu was chattering - about boys, about classes, about teachers, about the impending "football" game between her high school and the one across town, about her friends' love lives. A seemingly constant stream of inanity, none of which had anything to do with the town's undead problem, spewed from her mouth. Yazoo wondered how she'd managed to clear her plate of food, and out of curiosity, glanced under the table to make sure that she hadn't simply dumped it.

He was just sitting straight again when he realized that Kadaj was trying to make eye contact. "So?" At Yazoo's stony expression, he added, "You'll check out the reactor with Loz."

"Of course," Yazoo assured, his expression unchanging, though he cursed himself for not having paid better attention to the conversation around him. He wanted to ask where Kadaj would be, but didn't dare - Kadaj had probably explained himself already and would chastise him for not paying attention.

So he simply ate his food and gave no reaction, other than to wave a little, when Marisu cheerfully announced that she was off to school now, and Kadaj stood to follow her out the front door, grabbing up Souba from where he'd leaned the sword against the wall while eating. Yazoo's face remained impassive, but his gaze followed Kadaj as his brother trailed after the girl, and Kadaj was watching only _her_.

Yazoo carefully set down his fork, feeling a little ill. The momentary peace of the night before had evaporated - Kadaj simply wasn't that good an actor, where tolerance was involved. What was going on?

"Oh, would you like some more egg?" The human woman asked, picking up the half-shell to serve some more, despite there still being plenty of food on his plate.

"No, I've had enough," Yazoo murmured distractedly. He glanced up at the woman as he finished speaking. Her eyes seemed oddly vacant, though she still smiled at him with the shell in hand. It might have simply been his imagination.

He pushed back his chair and stood. "I'll just... go find Loz."

The air outside was chill and a little humid, but it was a relief - the warm air laden with food-scents inside seemed stomach-churning just now.

Loz was dragging a pair of corpses over to a large pile in the front yard, his empty plate sitting on the front porch - he'd probably just hidden the food they'd given him in the pile. It looked to be just about the last of the now-still dead; the area was spattered with ichor, but otherwise cleaned of debris, but for a few stray limbs. Loz himself must have cleaned up again a bit, probably just before breakfast, too. He wasn't actually very messy at the moment.

Stepping close to his brother, Yazoo spoke without preamble in a low voice. "I think there's something wrong with Kadaj."

Loz paused and glanced at Yazoo. He grunted in a tone of agreement, tossing first one corpse, then the other onto the pile and brushing off his hands.

So he'd noticed. "Do you know if something happened to him last night?"

Going still, Loz faced Yazoo, clearly attempting to concentrate. "Mm-Marisu," he said quietly, forcing out the less than familiar name with difficulty. "Heard 'er, after you. You slept. Porch. Came down, they went in. Side."

Scowling, Yazoo tried to make sense of the strange situation. "Do you know what was said?"

His brother only shook his head, as worried and certain that he'd somehow failed Kadaj as Yazoo was himself. Yazoo was quiet for a while, his gaze dropping to the stained grass in thought. After a few minutes, Loz turned and began to collect a pile of limbs in one arm, crossing the yard.

"Not good," Yazoo mumbled, watching his brother's sluggish movements and feeling very, very alone. There had to be a way he could figure this out...

The wooden floor of the front porch creaked, and Yazoo looked up to see Marisu's father, Roland, exiting the front door. "Phew! Aren't you boys industrious!" He exclaimed, eyeing the pile of bodies. "We can let the police handle the rest here. Time to head on out to the reactor." He waved toward his car, a wide, rectangular tan thing the resembled the vehicles that Yazoo was used to in the same way a cardboard box resembled a rowboat. The basic shape was the same, but distorted.

There didn't seem to be any help for it. Kadaj had made his wishes known. Maybe if they could solve this situation quickly and get out of this bizarre town, Kadaj would go back to normal. It seemed a reasonable hope, at least.

* * *

**Disclaimer: **The Final Fantasy VII compilation (in particular, Advent Children), its story, and characters are the property, copyright and trademark of Square Electronic Arts L.L.C., and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.


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